


eaten by crows

by seventhstar



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Implied/Referenced Torture, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Past Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-15
Updated: 2015-04-15
Packaged: 2018-03-23 01:30:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3749911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seventhstar/pseuds/seventhstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Nasch dies, Durbe mourns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	eaten by crows

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rangerhitomi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/gifts).



They strung his body up from the palace walls. He’d been beaten until he was unrecognizable, and the sun decayed him and the birds picked at him, and you wouldn’t have known that he was king but for the crown left on his head.

It was inevitable, Durbe thought. He’d read too many stories with the exact same outcome – you were rescued by the handsome prince, and then you fell in love with him, and lived happily ever after. Only knights couldn’t love princes who turned to kings, not when they were of different nations and different duties and the same sex, and so Durbe had concealed his feelings from the day they took root. He’d told himself it was enough to be Nasch’s friend, because that was already a privilege, and now he would never be able to tell him otherwise. Had Nasch ever thought that he was the star Durbe set his course by, that he was the person Durbe admired most? He would never know.

He came to see Nasch’s corpse in disguise, hiding among the wailing, down trodden crowds of the conquered while Vector played at holding court, the executioner looming ominously over the celebrations. He had to come unarmed and ashamed, and with no hope of giving Nasch the dignity of a burial. Duty was calling him and Mach home, and that meant that he would have to bear the weight of his failure, like Nasch’s body was hanging from his neck instead from the turrets of his home.

Vector’s army was milling around the capital, laughing the way his body swung in the breeze, and Durbe had to stomp down on his bloodlust, at the desire to carve his grief into their bodies at swordpoint. He knew that it was pointless, that the best revenge would be to go home and hold back Vector’s army from conquering his land as well. Nasch hadn’t been sentimental. He’d have scorned being mourned if Durbe could be actively doing something.

_I should have kissed you. I shouldn’t have ever left. I should have…_

Someone sobbed out loud nearby, and Durbe wanted to tell them that yes, all was lost. Their king was dead, and he’d been failed by Durbe and Durbe’s cowardice (would he have ever left for his home kingdom if he hadn’t been afraid of his feelings), and Vector’s rule would make the streets red with blood.

He wanted to cry, but knights weren’t afforded that luxury. He knelt down in the crowd under Nasch’s shadow – let people wonder – and prayed for forgiveness. He wouldn’t ever come back.


End file.
